8 mega-pixel camera

[smi]

I'm wondering what I need to do to my digital pics that were taken with an 8 mega-pixel camera to make them look the best in a mypublisher book? Does it change based on the size of image to printed in the book?


NOTE: Photos taken with a 7 mega-pixel or greater digital camera may print blurry and/or pixilated. We do not recommend you use these photos in the BookMaker software unless they are reduced to a lower pixel setting.

[mgilvey]

Your answer is somewhat confusing. Basically what it sounds like is if someone has an 8 mp camera all their photos will be blurry unless they downsample them to 7mp? No one even knows what that means.

Let me see if I understand what you are saying...If a photo is larger than the picture box it is going into, BookMaker will automatically scale it down which will make the image look a little blurry. Is that more of an accurate statement?

If that is accurate, would it be better if each photo were scaled to the exact size it needs to be (@300dpi) so that each image is at 100% and no scaling is necessary. Will the images be sharper then?

[danielle]

this is a good question .....

the way i am reading is simply -

If i shoot with a camera larger than 7mp.... Do I then need to resize them before uploading them so that they will print clearly ???




definatly something i would like to know since i shoot with an 8mp camera

[mgilvey]

It is just my guess but I would think that if you were able to place all your photos without them being scaled by the software, that would be optimal but to do that, we would need the physicial sizes of each picture box for each different book size/style.

In the prepress world, if you can place your photo at 100% there would be less chance of degradation. On that note, if you do decide to take that photo, do not apply any sharpening to your image until it is at it's final size...if you are doing your own optimizing.

This of course is just hypathetical and a guestimation until we can hear from someone who has already been through the wringer.

[kimfiano]

I am no tech wiz, so my answer may be vague without the right lingo. But last summer I made three books and only after I was almost done with the first one did I find the comment about using pictures from an 8 megapixle camera. Now, keep in mind this is supposed to be a problem only if you took the pictures using the highest setting in the camera. Unfortunately that's what I did. I sent off my book, with my high resolution pics and hoped for the best. The book turned out perfect! No problem. HOWEVER, because of the high resolution the files are huge for each picture. I had some problems downloading the book (it was 50 pages) and the program worked extremely slowly by the end. When I went to make my other books, I wanted to start with my original book and delete and add photos to make slightly different books. The process was so bogged down, I had to abandon it and start from scratch. This time I resized all my photos to a more reasonable resolution and then dragged them into the program. They turned out equally as well in my next book.
Just to be safe, either use a less powerful setting in your camera from the beginning, or resize the pics before importing them. There was a very good explanation of why an 8 megapixel is not recommended that someone had written last summer in this forum. Something about four-color printing presses not able to handle the detail of an 8-megapixel. Apparently all the hype for higher megapixels are not needed in print photography. However it does make a difference for digital displays (computer viewing, dvds, etc)

[lolo]

kimfiano-
Would you mind sharing how you resized your photos? If I were to use Photoshop Elements, would I change the document size and the resolution of each photo? And, if so, to what size and to what resolution would you recommend? I am putting together a wedding album and have had to start over 3 times because my book size was too large due to very large photo files, but I'm not sure what to use when resizing them.
Thanks SO MUCH in advance.
Lolo